AustLit logo
image of person or book cover 1567397226588026441.png
This image has been sourced from online.
y separately published work icon Blood Kin single work   novel   thriller  
Issue Details: First known date: 2007... 2007 Blood Kin
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'A chef, a portraitist and a barber are taken hostage in a coup to overthrow their boss, the president of a nameless country. They are held captive in a palatial retreat in the mountains high above the capital city. Meanwhile, the chef's daughter, the portraitist's pregnant wife and the barber's lover watch their men from the shadows – for in such precarious times, intimate relationships are as dangerous as political ones. As the old order falls, so does the veil that hides the truth about the secret passions of these men and women.

'Drawing her readers masterfully towards the novel's devastating climax, Ceridwen Dovey reveals how humanity's most atavistic impulses – vanity, vengeance and greed – seethe, relentlessly, just beneath the surface of everyday life. '

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Atlantic Books ,
      2007 .
      image of person or book cover 1567397226588026441.png
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 184p.
      ISBN: 9781843546573
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Atlantic Books ,
      2008 .
      image of person or book cover 4429708294569175557.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 1v.p.
      ISBN: 9781843546580, 1843546582
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Penguin Books ,
      2009 .
      image of person or book cover 6919318762364845468.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 183p.p.
      Edition info: Ebook
      ISBN: 9781436209984, 1436209986, 9781101202739, 1101202734
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 2015 .
      image of person or book cover 8473359759138672025.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 192p.
      Note/s:
      • Published: 23/09/2015
      ISBN: 9780143573470
Alternative title: Krew Władzy
Language: Polish
    • Warsaw,
      c
      Poland,
      c
      Eastern Europe, Europe,
      :
      Amber ,
      2007 .
      image of person or book cover 5042438673873668077.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 190p.p.
      ISBN: 9788324129140, 8324129146

Works about this Work

South African Literary Cartographies : A Post-Transitional Palimpsest Ronit Frenkel , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Ariel , January vol. 44 no. 1 2013; (p. 25-44)

'This article investigates three South African novels in an attempt to map the movement between transitional cultural production and post-transitional literature of the present. I briefly outline Phaswane Mpe's Welcome to our Hillbrow (2001) as a formative text of the South African transitional period before discussing Kgebetli Moele's Room 207 (2006) and Ceridwen Dovey's Blood Kin (2007) as post-transitional texts. These novels all circle around issues of place and space, while also revealing the shifts in South African cultural history, as they comprise a set of related perspectives that inscribe meaning across times and spaces. I argue that a palimpsestic reading of this fiction opens up the possibility of reconceptualizing the relationship between space, place, and transnational connectivity. Each of the three texts under discussion writes the space of the city as a type of situated transnationalism where the local and the global exist as coeval discourses of signification. The fecundity of a palimpsestic reading lies in the revelation of how one transitional experience is already present in another. By inscribing one discursive act over another, the ruptures and continuities between textualizations reveal a wealth of imaginaries that, I argue, define the idea of post-transitional South African literature. But perhaps most importantly, the post-transitional can be read as a palimpsestic concept itself, much like the fiction explored in this article, in that it enables a reading of the new in a way in which the layers of the past are still reflected through it. Rather than moving in a temporal linear fashion, post-transitional literature creates a palimpsest in which we can read the imaginaries circulating through and shaping South African cultural formations today.'

Source: Abstract.

Kernels of Dark Possibility 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , February vol. 3 no. 1 2008; (p. 24)

— Review of Luck in the Greater West McDonald Damian , 2007 single work novel ; Pickle to Pie Glenice Whitting , 2007 single work novel ; Me, Antman and Fleabag Gayle Kennedy , 2006 selected work short story ; Blood Kin Ceridwen Dovey , 2007 single work novel
Kernels of Dark Possibility 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , February vol. 3 no. 1 2008; (p. 24)

— Review of Luck in the Greater West McDonald Damian , 2007 single work novel ; Pickle to Pie Glenice Whitting , 2007 single work novel ; Me, Antman and Fleabag Gayle Kennedy , 2006 selected work short story ; Blood Kin Ceridwen Dovey , 2007 single work novel
South African Literary Cartographies : A Post-Transitional Palimpsest Ronit Frenkel , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Ariel , January vol. 44 no. 1 2013; (p. 25-44)

'This article investigates three South African novels in an attempt to map the movement between transitional cultural production and post-transitional literature of the present. I briefly outline Phaswane Mpe's Welcome to our Hillbrow (2001) as a formative text of the South African transitional period before discussing Kgebetli Moele's Room 207 (2006) and Ceridwen Dovey's Blood Kin (2007) as post-transitional texts. These novels all circle around issues of place and space, while also revealing the shifts in South African cultural history, as they comprise a set of related perspectives that inscribe meaning across times and spaces. I argue that a palimpsestic reading of this fiction opens up the possibility of reconceptualizing the relationship between space, place, and transnational connectivity. Each of the three texts under discussion writes the space of the city as a type of situated transnationalism where the local and the global exist as coeval discourses of signification. The fecundity of a palimpsestic reading lies in the revelation of how one transitional experience is already present in another. By inscribing one discursive act over another, the ruptures and continuities between textualizations reveal a wealth of imaginaries that, I argue, define the idea of post-transitional South African literature. But perhaps most importantly, the post-transitional can be read as a palimpsestic concept itself, much like the fiction explored in this article, in that it enables a reading of the new in a way in which the layers of the past are still reflected through it. Rather than moving in a temporal linear fashion, post-transitional literature creates a palimpsest in which we can read the imaginaries circulating through and shaping South African cultural formations today.'

Source: Abstract.

Awards

2008 shortlisted Dylan Thomas Prize
2008 shortlisted Australia-Asia Literary Award
2008 shortlisted Commonwealth Writers Prize Africa Best First Book
2006-2007 shortlisted John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
Last amended 6 Jul 2021 14:30:18
X